


The Frenzied Misadventures of Balcony Man and Window Woman

by clarewithnoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Meet-Cute, Romance, as per usual, is it a meet cute if one person thinks they're getting burgled?, jily, lily is sassy here and james is slightly bumbling, unintentional wingman Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28942266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarewithnoi/pseuds/clarewithnoi
Summary: It feels necessary to preface this entire thing with the fact that,yes,James had good reason to be dangling precariously from a third-floor balcony, and anyone who says differently is simply attempting to smear his good name.At least, that’s the story he’s sticking to.Answer to the Tumblr prompt: "It's 3am why are you outside my window- are you trying to rob me?"
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 36
Kudos: 98





	The Frenzied Misadventures of Balcony Man and Window Woman

**Author's Note:**

> I love Tumblr prompts! This was so fun to write. Love some good goofy Jily. I completely understand that I went a lil crazy with this, like it is definitely far-fetched, but it was just too fun, so I figured--why not?
> 
> I hope I've done your prompt justice, anon! Enjoy!

It feels necessary to preface this entire thing with the fact that, _yes_ , James had good reason to be dangling precariously from a third-floor balcony, and anyone who says differently is simply attempting to smear his good name.

At least, that’s the story he’s sticking to.

It all started because of Sirius—as most things do. But there’s some larger context that needs to be explained, first and foremost, because a hell of a lot happened in the midnight hours of this seemingly innocuous weekend in the first term of his third year of university. 

If one were to ask James Potter to identify the moment where everything in his life decided to hurl itself out of his control, he would pick somewhere around five-past-three in the morning on this warm, cloudless Saturday night (Sunday morning? He wasn’t particularly adept at grasping the semantics of it all), because while the hours previous had certainly been nothing short of a shitshow, five-past-three am (approximately) was when his night (morning?) graduated from _shitshow_ to _clusterfuck_ to _absolutely life-changing._

To set the scene: at precisely one-seventeen am on this same morning, Sirius Black accused James Potter of cheating at FIFA. 

This controversial assertion led to a spectacular row at precisely one-twenty-two am, because, as James stated (yelled) multiple times: _how absolutely dare you, you amoral prick, I would never do such a thing, you’re just angry because I beat you fair-and-square four times, which is because your strategy of illegally tackling me every five seconds ended up with thirteen penalty kicks which I made, because you can’t play keeper for shit, you absolute fastidious arse_.

At one-thirty-five am, James Potter was so righteously furious re: his impugned honor that he declared his need for sweets, and seeing as the entire flat was mysteriously devoid of such sweets—this was invariably Peter’s fault, but at the moment Peter was an accessory to his consciousness at most, so he chose to blame Sirius for this additional slight in its entirety—he grabbed a hoodie from his room and stormed out, declaring his intentions to buy an inappropriately large number of sweets _that he would share with no one_ and throwing Sirius a very rude yet entirely (in his mind) warranted two-finger salute.

At one-forty-seven am, Sirius Black, in all his wicked vengefulness, muttered something along the lines of _self-righteous cheating twat_ and very sneakily deadbolted the front door, which he knew he could only get away with because Remus was already asleep, and Peter couldn’t even give a damn if he noticed.

The underlying message to all of this being: _good luck getting back in, bucko_.

At five-past-two am, James Potter attempted to unlock his front door.

At six-past-two am, James Potter attempted to unlock his front door again.

At eight-past-two am, James Potter vocally spurned the existence of his roommate, Sirius Black, and his obsession with soundproofing the entire apartment because _he’s a terribly light sleeper_.

This all led to a series of unanswered phone calls, unheard banging on front doors, and the slightly sleep-deprived decision on James’s part to, instead of knocking on his neighbor Frank’s door and asking to crash on his couch, scale the side of the complex and climb into his unlocked window, which was only four floors up, really, so how hard could it be?

Well. At two-forty-three am, with his hands clamped desperately to the metal railing that lined the balcony of flat 3F—as he was 4F, he supposed this was his downstairs neighbor—James Potter came to the conclusion that it could be _very, very hard indeed_.

It was three minutes prior, at exactly two-forty am, when the following occurred:

“I’m going to murder Sirius,” James hissed as he lifted his leg to move up toward the edge of his own tiny windowsill, preparing to make a somewhat significant jump that would most assuredly land him at a reasonable height to push his window open and enter his room. “I’m going to murder him and then I’m going to delete his FIFA profile.”

And then, like a proverbial lightning bolt of instant karmic payout, came the _clusterfuck_.

Everything started to go left when he missed the necessary foothold that would have—had things, as previously mentioned, _not gone completely left_ —propelled him upward with enough stability to make the leap toward his window. Missing such a foothold, it turned out, was such a gargantuan blunder that the only option left was to scramble mindlessly for some sort of viable replacement foothold, which turned him around completely and left him facing the parking lot of the complex. 

It was there that he was apparently destined to remain, his back to the railing, both hands clinging to metal bars, feet dug determinedly into the gaps between the metal and the solid rock of the small, industrial balcony.

He could only hope that the noise that left him in his panic came out as gruff and manly instead of mousy and terrified, like he suspected it did.

But that wouldn’t really be on par for his luck tonight, would it?

“Well, just fuck me, I guess.” He groaned.

And so the universe replied: _wanna bet?_

Very suddenly, James heard a fair bit of movement behind him, followed by the _click_ of a window latch, and then a muted gasp. 

It was at this point that he remembered that the fundamental characteristic of a balcony is that there is a window present to accompany it, which, if the layout of his flat was anything to go by, meant that he was currently dangling outside of someone’s bedroom window, rattling metal bars and swearing up a storm at quarter to three in the morning. 

Panic alarms began to ring in his mind.

_I’m outside 3F’s window. I’ve woken up 3F. I’m going to get arrested because Sirius is a shit goalkeeper._

His thoughts were soundly interrupted by voice, sleep-laden and noticeably confused.

“…Is somebody out there?”

The odds that he could get away with pretending he didn’t exist seemed slim to none, so he chose to croak: “Hi, there.”

_Hi, there? Are you shitting me? You’re about five seconds away from falling three stories, you’ve just woken someone up at three am by making a commotion outside of their bedroom, and you go with HI, THERE?_

A momentary pause ensued, during which James could hear someone softly shuffling around, presumably searching for a phone with which to call the police or, alternately, a cricket bat with which to swat him from the balcony like a wayward, human-sized mosquito.

3F spoke once more.

“Er, what are you doing outside my window at…” they hesitated, “…ten-to-three am?”

“Terribly sorry,” James grunted, unmistakably aware of how this all looked and that whoever this voice belonged to would have full grounds to call the police on him and further ruin his weekend, “I just—"

“Are you trying to rob me?”

For such a loaded question, the person’s tone seemed more bemused than alarmed, which would have been worrying in and of itself if the voice wasn’t so pleasant and melodic.

“Excuse me?” James forgot himself for a moment and therefore tried to muster an appropriate amount of indignance to answer her—the voice was unmistakably a _her_ , which he was glad about, because statistically speaking, men are much worse to encounter at quarter to three in the morning than women—because he was not the sort of person to _rob_ anyone, thank-you-very-much, but such indignation nearly drove his foot off of its coveted space in between the concrete of the small balcony and the railing, so he tempered his reaction slightly. “Why would I be trying to rob you?!”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the voice, “why does anyone rob anyone? Abject poverty? Untreated anger problems? Personal vendetta?”

“Do you know a lot of people with personal vendettas against you?”

“I’ll be asking the questions here, Balcony Man.”

All things considered, this seemed like a fair enough deal. James nodded his head in acquiescence, and he assumed she could see it, because she didn’t press the issue further. 

And then, seemingly in accordance with her rebuff, his right leg began to cramp. It was a veritable _ha, ha, fuck you_ from the universe. 

He was going to beat Sirius over the head with a lawn chair for putting him through this.

There was a momentary lull in the conversation in the wake of his affirmative nod, for which James was thankful, because it allowed him the relative mental clarity to move his right foot _just_ far enough to the left that the emerging cramp began to subside. He sighed internally as he rotated his ankle from left to right and heard the small crackling of moving cartilage. _Thank god._ He needed that foot for rugby.

The voice broke the lapsing silence between them with a small hum. “You still haven’t given me an answer, you know.”

Oh, right. There was still the matter of Window Woman to deal with—who hadn’t called the police yet, which was a good sign, but also spoke to some sort of lack of critical judgement. Not that he _wanted_ the police called on him; but still, if he were a woman who woke up to a strange man dangling off of his balcony, he’d have already dialed 999 and would probably be hurling projectiles at the offender until the cops arrived.

It took him a moment to realize he still hadn’t answered, which was in poor form, given the courtesy that Window Woman was currently extending him by not screaming bloody murder and bashing him with a lamp. He racked his brain for a reply to her statement but came up helplessly blank.

“…Could you repeat the question? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m really very focused on the whole not-careening-to-the-ground business.”

“I asked whether or not you’re trying to rob me.”

James had to stop himself from rolling his eyes, but then quickly remembered that, since she was behind him in her window and he was facing outside, she wouldn’t have known the difference either way. He rolled his head around in what he hoped was a sweeping gesture to his current position: _do you really think this is where I want to be right now?_

“I feel like at this point you should know that I’m not trying to rob you,” he said.

“I’m not so sure about that.” She sounded contemplative, and he briefly imagined someone tapping their finger on their chin in thought. “You could be playing some sort of mind-game. Like, maybe you’re actually completely capable of getting in here to hogtie me and then steal my things, but you’re just choosing not to in order to lull me into a false sense of security.”

 _“Lull you into—”_ (now his foot was cramping again, because clearly things were going too well for him up until this point, and the universe needed to further remind him of his own stupidity) “Are you _mad?_ ”

“Asks the person who’s in prime position to rob and murder me!”

“I think,” he gritted, wishing desperately that he could flex his hand, which was beginning to throb from the expenditure of effort it took to _not fall three stories,_ “that you’ve grossly miscalculated the power dynamic we’ve established here.” He pondered for a second. “Also, why did my intentions just escalate to _murder?”_

“You could be part of some elite crime syndicate or something, I don’t know.”

James scoffed. “Watching a bit too much Peaky Blinders, are we?”

“Judge not that ye be judged, he-who-clings-to-my-railing.”

Touché.

“Well, allow me to set the record straight, Tony Soprano— _no_ , I’m not trying to rob you. Or murder you, if that’s something you were actually worried about.”

“That’s good. You’d be doing a pretty shoddy job of it if you _were_ trying to, you know.” _Oh, for fuck’s sake—_

“Well, I’m not, so luckily we can save all judgments on my lack of criminal prowess for a different occasion.”

“Sorry—do you plan on robbing me another time?”

“Wouldn’t _another_ _time_ imply that I’m actually trying to rob you _now_ , when I so very clearly just said that I wasn’t?”

“That’s the thing about criminals, they often lie.”

Now his arm was beginning to cramp. 

To take stock of James’s current predicaments: he’d made absolutely no progress toward his own window, he was in no small amount of pain from contorting himself to keep from falling helplessly to his death (probably just injury, really, because this was a very short building—but if there were any time for a flare of dramatics, it was now) and apparently, on top of all this, he had to deal with Sherlock Holmes over here, quipping and cajoling his performance.

“I am _not—”_ he spoke through gritted teeth, _“trying to rob you.”_

“Why are you out here, then? If not to rob and/or murder poor, unwitting university students while also engaging in psychological warfare?”

“At present, I’m thinking about hurling myself from a balcony to avoid conversation.”

“Ha, ha, Balcony Man. That’s a good one. Now, answers please.”

Well, if Window Woman wasn’t going to call the police on him, that meant she might actually consider helping him off the balcony at some point, so being honest about his circumstances might actually help his case. And his arm. Which, at the moment, was also beginning to throb. _Ow ow ow ow ow._

“My roommate’s being a prick,” James supplied.

“Hmm.” A brief pause. “Are you going to elaborate on that? Because forgive me if I’m having trouble following the logical progression from that point A to, well, _this_ point B.”

If he wasn’t so annoyed and in pain, James would have probably appreciated her humor. She was funny. And her voice was still very melodic. “Well, I was _getting there_ , if you’d have just let me finish.”

“Alright then. My bad. Dreadfully poor manners, interrupting the person attempting to burgle me.”

 _“I’m not trying to—_ hang on, who even uses the word _burgle_ anyway?”

“I do, you nefarious lawbreaker. Now carry on.”

“Right,” he said, mostly because the quicker he got the story out, the quicker he could ask for some bloody assistance, “the long and short of it is that my roommate—Sirius—accused me of cheating at FIFA, which is just a bold-faced lie, but he’s unable to confront his own failings as a FIFA player—” _this is more detail than you need, James, get on with it before your arms fall off,_ “—so we had a row and then I went to get sweets to cool off and then he locked me out. I live in 4F; my room’s just above yours, so I was trying to get to my window.”

“…hm.”

_“Hm?”_

“I mean,” Window Woman seemed to be weighing her options, “it’s quite believable. I’ve seen the mailboxes downstairs, so I do know that a man named Sirius lives here. Which, I mean, _really?_ Who names their kid _Sirius?”_

“His parents’ names are Walburga and Orion. They’re distant cousins.”

There followed a brief pause. “…well, then,” said Window Woman, “your friend’s lifelong family issues aside, I very nearly believe you.”

_“…but?”_

“But, this could still be a ruse, like you tell me this sob story and then you try and chat me up so I let you into my flat, and then you murder me brutally and I end up as a tragic Wikipedia article that people cite as the origin story of your psychopathy.”

James craned his neck to the side, hoping to catch her eye so she could see his affronted look. He was unsuccessful. _Chat her up? Psychopathy?!_

“What am I, some sort of scoundrel?!” He cried, indignant.

“Lest you forget, you climbed up to my window in the dead of night, so let’s not get all high and mighty about morals, Balcony Man.”

_“Because I’m trying to get to my own window, you crazy person—"_

“I mean,” she continued, sounding completely unbothered, “you haven’t even told me your name! Am I supposed to just go out on a limb and sympathize with you here, when you won’t even offer up the most basic information?”

Speaking of _going out on limbs_ , his were starting to wobble. He wasn’t sure what that meant, because it had never happened before, but he was quite certain that _wobbling_ was not something that limbs were intended to do.

“Fucking hell,” James said, “ _fine—_ my name’s James, I’m twenty-one years old, and—”

She cut him off, and her voice was flavored with humor, which he only partially resented. “If you’re going to say you think you might be a psychopath, I can tell you I’ll be disappointed but not surprised.”

“I commend you for your choice in Netflix originals,” he drawled, “but now that you know my name, and I can make the solemn promise not to chat you up, would you _please_ consider helping me so I can at least get back into the building, if not my own bleeding flat?”

“…I’m considering it.”

 _Oh, brilliant, she’s considering it_.

“And what must I do to speed up this process? Other than—you know—eliminating all options by _falling to my death?”_

“Hush up, you drama queen. You’d only end up maimed at worst.”

 _“At worst_ , she says!”

He heard a huff of breath from Window Woman, which he inferred could mean one of two things: either she was going to help him, or she’d been entertained enough for the evening, so it was time for her to heave him from the balcony like a crash-test dummy.

No real mystery which one he was hoping for.

As he was pondering this dilemma, Window Woman apparently had time enough to retreat into her room and retrieve necessary materials, because a moment later, a tied-up sheet was flung over the railing and onto his left shoulder.

So it was to be the first option, then. That was nice.

“I’ve tied it to my bed, which I’m currently lying on, so it won’t come loose or anything—in case you thought I was trying to kill you.”

“Well, I wasn’t before, but now I’m a little worried.”

“Shut up and climb, Balcony Man.”

“Right.”

Given the slightly weakened state of his muscles, it took him an embarrassingly long time to clamber through her window on the proffered sheet, and each movement felt much more strenuous than it should have. He arrived on her bed as a clumsy heap, tumbling headfirst and landing, finally— _blissfully_ —onto the solid wood of her floor.

It wasn’t altogether very comfortable, but still entirely preferable to landing on the parking lot.

“Well, then,” came Window Woman’s voice behind him as he stared dazedly up at her ceiling, “he lives.”

 _Right._ He had to thank her for ostensibly saving his arse and rugby career, because, and this was somehow the first time he was thinking about this, if he’d gotten injured now, he’d be out for the rest of the season. He cursed his chronic lack of forethought.

James heaved himself from the floor and began to dust himself off, before finally turning to look at his very cheeky savior. “God, I don’t even know how to thank—”

He stopped himself, suddenly breathless—and not from his recent climb.

If one were to ask James Potter to identify the moment where everything in his life decided to hurl itself out of his control, he would pick somewhere around five-past-three in the morning on this particular Sunday, when he was standing in a bedroom a floor beneath his flat and staring at the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, who was grinning back at him like he was the funniest thing she’d encountered all week.

He’d take it.

“Er—” he started again. His brain was short-circuiting. Her eyes were really, really green, he noticed, and she had a smattering of freckles across her nose. “I wanted to say thank you, for—well, you know, all that.”

“Even the part where I teased you for twenty minutes?”

 _Especially that part_ , he wanted to say, but thought better of it. She was wearing a vest top and pajama shorts, and such an outfit had never flustered him before, but he had to try very hard not to stare.

“Even that part, yeah.”

She stuck a hand out to him, which he promptly enveloped in his own. “Name’s Lily, by the way, in case you felt like writing me a cheque. Lily Evans.” _Much better than Window Woman_.

“Nice to meet you, Lily,” _understatement of the century_ , “I’m James P—”

“James Potter. I know. Remus and I have a History class together, and he talks about his flatmates sometimes. Plus, I’ve seen you around.”

_Wait a second. Wait a fucking second—_

“You knew who I was this whole time?!”

“Of course I did. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“ _You_ — _you_ —” James gaped. “You said you didn’t know my name!”

“No, I didn’t,” she replied with a smile, which was bright and beaming and far too pretty for something that evidently hid such massive amounts of mischief, “I said you hadn’t _told me_ your name. Never said I didn’t already know it. I mean, did you really think I’d let a strange man into my home?”

It only took a moment for James to deflate, because, really, it was just so fucking brilliant. They were going to have fun together, the two of them. 

He didn’t bother to stop the grin that overtook his face as he drank her in once more. “Well played, Lily-formerly-Window-Woman.”

“Thank you, James-formerly-Balcony-Man.”

The two stared at each other for a brief period, and he couldn’t help but take in the soft red of her hair and the way it fell across her shoulders, how it framed the green of her eyes with the most effervescent contrast. A small ray of moonlight illuminated a diagonal line across her face, from the left side of her jaw to her right temple, and James thought he might very much like to trace the path of it with his fingertips. He watched as a small dusting of pink spread across her cheeks in response to his blatant ogling, but he didn’t have it in him to stop looking at her.

“C’mon.” She gestured with her hand for him to follow as she turned around and walked toward her bedroom door. James trailed a few feet behind her, wanting to make sure she knew he wouldn’t get too close without her permission. “I’ve got a couch you can sleep on tonight. It’s big and vastly overpriced, so I’m sure it’ll suit your fancy, from what Remus tells me. You can go storm the castle and murder your roommate in the morning.”

“Cheers.”

God, but she was beautiful. And he could listen to the sound of her voice forever and still want to ask for more.

Sirius may live to cause mayhem another day.

Something dawned on James as Lily grabbed an assortment of blankets from a small cupboard, one with _High School Musical_ printed all over it in bright pink letters, another one a dark green tartan. “I have one question, though,” he said.

“Mm-hm?”

“How steadfast are we holding to this _no chatting you up_ rule from before?”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you want to submit a prompt or just say hi, come check me out on Tumblr @clare-with-no-i !
> 
> and I'd love for you to check out my other works, especially my two WIPs, "New Age Romancing" and "Bond and Free"!


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